The fall of the giant: Maglas Stadium’s fall from grace to grass

OBLIVIOUS of the dangers of playing hide and seek in an elevated building of what used to be the VIP section of Maglas Stadium, a group of schoolboys seem to care less about safety nor the fact that they are fooling around in an unsafe area.

A football stadium should typically be a safe space for children but by all accounts Maglas Stadium — once a glorious facility home to Shabanie Mine FC and a fortress that opposition teams dreaded playing in — is now a safety hazard even for adults.

The boys, about 12 of them and all in school uniform, take turns to swing from one rail to the other and it’s evident that they have made it a habit to “sneak” into the now dilapidated stadium every day after school to play before heading home.

The moment they spot a Saturday Chronicle news crew, which had travelled from Bulawayo to Zvishavane to get first-hand appreciation of the decay at the facility, the young lads dangerously flee from the VIP section where they were fooling around and make a dash for it.

To say that Maglas Stadium is a fallen giant whose stature and standard among some of the finest football stadiums that electrified Zimbabwean football is an understatement. Maglas Stadium is now an eyesore.

Who can blame the boys for turning a once glorious and magnificent stadium into a playground on their way home? Nothing about the stadium can be given half-a-thumbs up from the playing pitch which evidently last got wet during the rainy season and has not licked a single drop of piped underground water in ages. Piped water is a must for every stadium for the precious liquid to keep the pitch lush green all year around.

The sitting area for the coaches and substitutes for both home and away teams, commonly referred to as the technical area, is virtually unrecognisable with broken plastic chairs and a shade that can’t even keep rains and the sun’s rays away from the same people it is meant to protect from the weather elements.

In the event of violent disturbances at Maglas Stadium, the fence that is meant to barricade possible invaders from attacking players and coaches is non-existent.

Saturday Chronicle took a mini tour around the terraces and observed cracked concrete blocks, overgrown grass and bushes that one would expect to find in the Matopo National Park — a sanctuary reserved for preserving the country’s flora and fauna.

A walk up the elevated building that was once a preserve for the VIPs of the game, back in the day when Highlanders, Caps United and Dynamos executives dreaded a trip to Zvishavane further showed the extent of the rot and decay of Maglas Stadium.

The permanent visitors that have replaced football executives in the VIP area are rats and possible stray cats that roam the section in anticipation of a quick dinner from the many rodents that now call the stadium home.

At the end of the stadium, billboard standing metres high in the air inscribed “Shabanie Mine FC Supporters” casts a lonely figure as a stark reminder that Waru Waru fans once jumped up and down the terraces, sang out their hearts and souls and intimidated opposition teams with ferocious roars in support of Shabanie Mine FC.

Earlier on as we were making our way into the stadium through what we now know to be Gate One, an older gentleman looked at us as if wondering what two guys, one with a camera, could possibly be looking for in a dilapidated stadium.

Later, he said his name is Johannes Mareya, a retired asbestos miner at Shabanie Mashava Mine (SMM), who still supports Shabanie Mine FC to the core.

His home is just a stone’s throw away from Gate One, the same entrance that he and his sons used in the hey days when Maglas Stadium was the prime entertainment joint on the weekend.

“My heart bleeds, look at Maglas right now, I can’t even go into the stadium because it’s too painful for me to go in there. My whole family supports Shabanie Mine FC and I used to watch the team with my sons when they were young right in that stadium. Everyone at the mine that I worked with was a Shabanie Mine FC supporter. Today I hear these kids talk about FC Platinum and I wonder if they know that Shabanie Mine FC was the biggest team in Zvishavane and loved the team,” said Mareya.

Shabanie Mine FC spokesman Weston Wesley explained the arrangement between the club and owners of the stadium — Shabanie Mashava Mine — and their hopes and aspirations for the future.

“The stadium is owned by a subsidiary of the mine known as Shabanie Mine Property and Amenities Department, which is responsible for taking are of the stadium while Shabanie Mine FC is now a community team.

“We are responsible for our own operations as a club while the mine takes care of the stadium. We have been in Division One (Zifa Southern Central Region) since 2019, it’s been a struggle financially especially this year but we are confident of avoiding relegation,” said Wesley.

He says the club is not in a rush to gain Premier Soccer League status for now but is firmly looking into the future when Maglas Stadium is renovated and ready to host topflight teams. The stadium was allegedly vandalised by thieves who stole irrigation pipes and equipment last year.

“The mine has been doing its best to maintain the stadium but last year we lost irrigation pipes and equipment. The problem with community-owned teams is always about money, which is why we are trying to adopt the Orlando Pirates model where major investor comes in with money and a board of trustees is appointed to run the club,” he said.

Repeated efforts to get a comment from the Shabanie Mashava Mine public relations department were in vain as the receptionist kept telling the news crew on Thursday that the person tasked with speaking to the media was in a marathon of meetings.